Category Archives: In the Bedroom

I thought I could find a few more before pictures of the master bedroom but I think all the photos taken during scorpion invasion and the subsequent painting/drop cloth/really tall ladder takes up the whole room phase got deleted from my camera roll. However I did dig up a few gems from the realty listing.

See that fleshy beige wall paint!!! And the vertical blinds – those were the first thing to go and it was very satisfying to throw them off the second floor balcony. JT also updated all of the outlets and switches to be nice and clean and white to match our new wall color.

That fan! There are a total of five of the same mildly offensive but oh-so functional Hunter fans throughout the house. I’ve started the search for a perfect replacement and have yet to find one I really love ….

For comparison ….

The bathroom …. which has the same light fixtures, mirrors, sinks, faucets, granite and cabinets as the other full and half bath in the house. A real first world problem I have is that I HATE my granite. Or maybe I just hate it in context of everything else that is going on. At any rate, I have plans for this space ….

So there’s a little sneak peek into some “befores”. I’ll have more and a floor plan soon! Cheers – CT

Before we moved in, we painted the bulk of the first floor Benjamin Moore “White Dove”. We stopped the paint at the corner at the bottom of the stairs before it turns and goes up into the two volume space. So for a while, downstairs was gorgeous gleaming white and the upstairs was still that dingy, fleshy beige that drives me crazy.

Part of living in the desert means that all of the creepy crawlies that live outdoors would much rather live in your home. And the creepy crawlies out here are so much more terrifying than in the Midwest I have found. The long segue I am trying to make here is that we ended up moving into the guest bedroom for a time after we discovered a few scorpions living in our master bedroom. There was one in JT’s shoe which was stored in one of the under-bed drawers and another hanging out on the inside of the shower curtain one morning. Not cool. While we were waiting for the pest people to come back, we decided to go ahead and get the master bedroom painted. So here it is …

We have nice high ceilings in this room and so we decided to accent the end wall with Sherwin Williams “Porpoise” which was a color we had in our STL house as well. I guess I just really love that color – it’s a pretty perfect warm dark grey. The canvas artwork has moved with us too and lived in a few different rooms before ending up here.

I have a love/hate relationship with the mirrored closet doors. They’re so functional yet so …. tacky. They do help bounce the light around the room. You can kind of see in the reflection that we have the Koehler white vinyl rocker/lounger in the corner for a little sitting/clothes piling area. JT got that chair from Goodwill during college and I think we may have it forever. I love it – there’s nothing tacky about it! You can kind of see beyond that the master bedroom opens into the sink area of the master bath and then around the corner and behind closed doors is the water closet and a large tub/shower.

Here’s an outtake from my little photo shoot – Shenanigan was done with being photographed and wanted O-U-T of the bedroom. Tough luck little dude. The blue duvet cover and pillow shams came from West Elm about two years ago. Next steps for this room is a proper headboard – we still haven’t had one of those in almost 11 years of marriage! It would also be nice to upgrade our bedside tables and lamps as well at some point.

Above is a little scene from this A.M. – Boo got scared of something in the night and jumped up on the bed. The dogs are getting older with creakier joints so they actually don’t get up on the bed with us as much anymore, which is probably good for both the husband’s and my back.

Not to be left out, I also caught Sophie the dog mid-yawn this morning. You can see how the carpet has some Sophie spots on it. JT and I would love to replace the carpet for hardwood or maybe an LVT floor as Miss Sophie has left her mark a few places when she wasn’t feeling well with a UTI. We’ve rented a steam cleaner twice but haven’t had any success getting fully rid of the telltale stains.

The best part about this house and especially the master bedroom is the view – there’s a balcony looking out over the mountain. We picked up some cool chairs from Lowes and JT and I sit out there some mornings, sip our coffee and soak in the scenery.

Below is a better view out the sliding door and over the balcony. It was a rare(r) rainy day the other day and like a true Phoenician, I took a photo of the rain.

You can kind of see the hot tub below on the left and the hammock is hanging out down there. JT has been itching to find some pavers and fill in the large “sand box” we inherited and create a nice outdoor living room.

So that’s the master bedroom in the new house, a little sanctuary in the sky. There’s still work to be done in there (we need a non-ugly fan STAT!) and I didn’t show more photos in the bathroom part of the suite on purpose – it’s a work in progress but we’re loving it.

Hopefully this week we’re going to finish up a little laundry room renovation and I also have some more of a room-by-room tour of the new house. The hot weather has finally left Phoenix and I’m starting to get my home project mojo back. Have a great week! Cheers – CT

Hey everyone. It is September and that is mind-boggling to me. And also exciting because I like September, being the Libra, sapphire wearing girl that I am.

Something else mind-boggling AND exciting is one of my vacation finds. (See how I transitioned there? So awkward and great. Yeah.) At any rate, back in July I was dreaming of many things and one of them was a vintage tri-fold vanity mirror. At the beginning of our week off from work, I grabbed JT and towed him along with me to the Green Shag Market. There in one of the corner booths almost immediately upon entering was my vintage tri-fold vanity mirror. And the price tag said (only) $22!

Something about the crazy light in my eyes or the way I clutched at the mirror tipped JT off to the fact that I intended to purchase this thing, stat. He immediately carried it up to the front desk so I could finish making my rounds. There were a few other things that caught my eye but in the end we only left with the mirror. Once I showed JT my now-prophetic post with such a similar image of a tri-fold mirror did he understand the insanity he had just been witness to.

And now it’s home, living on my dressing table in our bedroom. I had this paper lantern light fixture hanging out in the basement of shame. I’m pretty sure I bought it at Pier One in high school to decorate my peach, pink, green and teal awesomeness of a bedroom.

Still need to hem those curtains though! Also I’ll probably work on getting the cord rigged up a little better and probably painting the part that shows up against the grey wall.

Methinks I need a cuter alarm clock — any ideas?

The little lightning bolt on the desk I found on the ground in front of the Green Shag on my first visit there. Since then I have found one other random lightening bolt in the parking lot on my way to work (it’s red vinyl). I think they keep showing up like little love letters from Elvis, king of TCB and lightening bolts.

This week on Mister Modtomic I am rounding up Panton S chairs. Wouldn’t one of those look nice at my dressing table? I do love my little lucite and white vinyl stool though. And seriously, any suggestions on a working alarm clock that would round out my vignette is much appreciated (and preferably not one I have to wind every day.) Cheers – CT

So yeah — September of 2011 I was whining about our bedroom curtains. I hung them too low and they still didn’t touch the floor. The rod was puny. All beginner mistakes.

Take a refresher look:

So shameful! I got some beefier rods and simple white curtains at Ikea about forever ago and had them waiting in the wings. The lovely thing about hanging these new rods is our walls – they’re exterior walls, plaster on brick and anytime you drill into them it feels like the end of the world. So we waited until JT had a plane to catch a few hours away and then decided to tackle it. Made total sense. But I’m so glad we did because now it feels like we live in a fancy, grown-up room. Check it out.

Yep, these images were all snapped at 7am this morning. After a few more projects in here I’m going to shoot it up as “for real” as I can get it.

Instead of going with the gallery wall in here that I was considering, I decided to reframe the Bernard Buffet print and have it be a stand-alone piece on the wall opposite our bed. It’s working with the curtains (mounted up at the ceiling) to create a nice calm and soothing bedroom retreat.

I still have to iron the curtains and hem them — I was hoping the wrinkles would work their way out just by hanging the curtains but no such luck. And I was a little skeptical about hanging the curtains so high due the large “forehead” over the window it was creating but I love it. Love. I wish I could go back to bed now!

Things have been a bit spastic and sporadic over here at Living Analog. I have about 500 projects half started and zero finished. We’re getting ready for our “Sweetheart’s Dinner” (AKA Valentine’s Dinner Party) and I’ve been really been looking for ways to amp this up and squeeze some juicy blog content out of it. So that led to more projects . . .

So what have I done (besides whining and bellyaching)? Well Pinterest is the devil and sidetracked me with some recipes: baked cinnamon apple chips and homemade cheese-its that I just had to try:

The apple chips were eat-them-right-now-and-then-make-more good. The DIY cheese-its were a little meh. I think I left the dough in the fridge too long and need to roll them thinner. It was good enough to give it a second try — plus it’s nice to make these and know what four ingredients are in them versus the chemical smorgasbord you buy at the store. Off my soapbox now . . . are you on Pinterest? I’m mildly addicted and sometimes majorly annoyed. I’ll pin something and later go to click-through to the original source and . . . nothing. Or spam. Right now my policy is to only repin items — Pinterest is still a gray area for makers and artisans — do they want their items pinned for all to attempt a duplicate? Maybe not. So by only repinning, I’m sort of off the hook when it comes to the point of putting someone else’s item on Pinterest without their permission. The exception to that is items for sale — I totally have a pin board with a crazy expensive purse that I want. I figure if an item is available for internet retail, they only benefit by having it on Pinterest. . . .

That’s me, if you want to meet up over there. I should figure out how to put a linky-thing up for that. I probably also need to start watermarking my photos but that’s for another day . . . no time, too many projects!

Oh yeah . . .another Pinterest project . . .

(Pardon the bad iPhone picture). This is my plan to tie in the arc lamp and all its brassy goodness. Add some more gold/brass! This is a thrift store canvas I picked up for a few dollars and have spray painted metallic. Next step paint like this cool pin:

Now that I look at my version versus their version, I think I am going to retape. I like how this canvas has one major vanishing point . . . back to the drawing board . . . and onto other projects . . .

Here’s something for the dinner party:

I found this little cookie cutter at World Market and it will make little shortbread cookies that sit on the edge of a coffee cup. And I just got new coffee cups that nest into a little serving tray from my mom for Christmas so I know that will be getting used. . . next?

Now that we’re fully up and operational in 2013, I’m working on getting some momentum in the bedroom. (I’m referring to decorating momentum for those of you mind-in-the-gutter-folks.) Over the years I’ve accumulated a lot of little odds and ends to be framed and I’ve been stashing them away. This year I want to create two gallery “art” walls – one in the bedroom and another in the living room.

So I began by unearthing all my treasures.

I’m a hoarder. I had a roll-up tube of things I didn’t even get out because I’m pretty sure it still has a “City of Angels” movie poster from my days in high school working at the local Blockbuster. Also, the bedroom is still in its redecorating funk (e.g. when it gets worse before it gets better. )

Next I sorted my finds into two groupings based on color and feel. The grouping for the living room has more of the brighter colors and the grouping for the bedroom is a little more muted. Nothing is set in stone here but I wanted to get a feel for what I could use.

Here’s what came together for the bedroom grouping:

(Also the extra-large canvas is moving back in from its temporary home in the living room.) Only one item here did I spend actual cash money on — the Bernard Buffet print. (My art terminology is not good — is it called a print or a reproduction? It seems to be printed on a thick chipboard paper.) The rest of these items were either given to me, like the collage by Susan Springer Anderson or scrounged by me (everything else).

Nothing is too sacred or too silly around our house to not end up in a frame. I view everything with the eyes of a scavenger and think about what use and/or re-use I can find for it.

Serendipitously, my sister and I had a date with Goodwill this weekend (the one on Watson) as we were out doing some wedding craft things. (I also had culled two large bags of stuff to drop off and then in we went as part of my frigid winter spring cleaning.) Low and behold, six larger picture frames for a grand total of $17.

(Pardon me but it appears this picture has a hint of dog butt as well. That happens a lot in our house.) I still haven’t decided what color to keep the frames but it’s a start. Art wall 2013.

Things have started to move around the house. As if by little ghosts. Or me dragging and cursing them on a towel.

Here’s a wall in the living room before.

Yeah, those shelves are down too. The holes are patched and painted.

And a wall in the bedroom before. (Some great night time photography by yours truly. Sorry. Also please remember we have not done one thing to this bedroom. Yet.)

And look at it now! The desk from the living room became my dressing table in the bedroom. I love that little Lucite and white vinyl stool more than life itself.

Still not a whole lot happening but it’s starting to go places.

Speaking of places, here’s another wall in the bedroom:

And then it got the shuffle too. And paint! See that little green piece of painter’s tape in the “before” above? We had been living with it for a while to see if it felt right. And we decided it did. . .

When I saw Emily Henderson (of Secrets from a Stylist on HGTV)’s post about her guest bedroom and a painted picture rail, I knew the idea was a perfect fit for our bedroom. We’ve been going back and forth about what color to paint in here, the only unpainted (by us) room in the house. At first we thought of dark, dark walls, the better for sleeping all day and ignoring the world. Then I got nervous that in a future resale situation light, white walls would be better. So this is the best of both. The colors are Sherwin Williams Urbane Bronze below (to about 5’7″ AFF) and then Shoji White above. I still had paint on hand from the last accent wall in the living room (Urbane Bronze) and the second to last accent wall color (Shoji White). Waste not, want not. And it’s nice that the bedroom is cohesive with the rest of the house’s color palette.

It’s loverly. (The big bullet planter was in the bedroom acting as an incense holder — I was trying to get rid of all the paint smells.)

And then, once that wall got looking nice, it went back to disaster.

The cabinet from JT’s dad finally made its appearance in the bedroom! This is the Annie Sloane chalk paint extravaganza that I’ve been having. And it’s not over yet. I’m excited to have the little TV tucked away behind doors along with its stupid bunny ears (see the before picture above.) We never really watch TV in here but it’s nice to have a secondary TV just in case one of us (me) wants to watch a really girly movie and the other doesn’t (husband). It also comes in handy when the storm sirens go off at night so we can check and see if we need to go to the basement (during tornado season, joys of living in the Midwest).

So that’s what I got. One part of one wall painted, three and a half to go. One part of one cabinet painted and waxed, doors and drawers to go. At some point – a headboard to be built, accessories to be added and more photographs to be taken. Hold on tight, this bedroom is going for a ride.

Our great furniture shuffle has also left our dressers homeless. I love them and have used them in the music room before switching them into the bedroom but they just don’t fit anywhere anymore. A matched pair of anything is like gold in my world. If you know anyone who would want to adopt them, they’re on the ‘list right now: http://stlouis.craigslist.org/fuo/3435893278.html